Egypt said on Monday it was willing to join a potential international force deployed to war-torn Gaza, but only if backed by a UN Security Council resolution and accompanied by a “political horizon”, as ceasefire efforts pressed on in Cairo.
Egypt has repeatedly called for Palestinian unity under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), an umbrella group that dominates the Palestinian Authority and excludes militant group Hamas.
The PA previously governed the Gaza Strip before losing power in 2007 during violent clashes with Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel sparked the current war in the territory.
“We are standing ready of course to help, to contribute to any international force to be deployed in Gaza in some specific parameters,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told a joint press conference with Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa at the Rafah border crossing on Monday.
“First of all, to have a security council resolution, to have a clear-cut mandate, and of course to come within a political horizon,” Abdelatty said.
“Without a political horizon, it will be nonsense to deploy any forces there.”
Abdelatty said a political framework would enable international troops to operate more effectively and support Palestinians “to realise their own independent Palestinian state in their homeland”.
The Palestinian premier, Mustafa, said a temporary committee would manage the territory after the war ended, with full authority resting with the Palestinian government.
“We’re not creating a new political entity in Gaza. Rather, we are reactivating the institutions in the State of Palestine and its government in Gaza,” he said.
While Hamas has previously welcomed the idea of a temporary committee to “oversee relief efforts, reconstruction and governance”, it remains unclear whether the group is willing to relinquish control of the territory.
In an interview with US network Fox News earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel planned to seize complete control of the Gaza Strip, but did not intend to govern it.
“We don’t want to keep it,” the premier said, adding Israel wanted a “security perimeter” and to hand the Palestinian territory to “Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us”.
On Monday, Hamas negotiators in Cairo received a new proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, a Palestinian official said, with the prime minister of key mediator Qatar also in Egypt to push for a truce.
bha-maf/dcp
© Agence France-Presse
